Slashdot Mirror
Are 'Server Emulators' Legal?
Ashran: "I'm one of the lead developers on the EverQuest server emulator at HackersQuest. What I've wondered is, whenever creating an server emulator is legal in the U.S. It is legal here I live, but new team members might be from the U.S. We've received a few 'Cease and Desist' e-mails from the CEO of Verant, but we've ignored them all up to now. Does anyone have any experience in this field?" For those of you curious as to what a "server emulator" is, check out yesterday's article on the recent beta release. Well, at least Hemos gets his wish and now knows what Verant's reaction is.
You forgot your "break;" statements.
This is just another example of the United States trying to control world law. It is becoming pervasive -- the internet, broadcasting, intellectual property, the list goes on.
It even extends to our driving and traffic laws. The Slashdot Cruiser, for example, has the steering wheel on the LEFT side. Well, that's fine if you live in the U.S., but it doesn't work as well in other countries. Why should I change my local laws just to cruise the mall in it?
Slashdot will never acknowledge this problem, of course, because they forget that they have an international audience. Clearly, Slashdot only intends for U.S.ian readers to win the Slashdot Cruiser. Never mind that some of the most insightful and interesting contributions come from across the pond.
Perhaps it's a good thing. After all, that car is fugly. I mean declare-a-war-and-force-the-loser-to-drive-it fugly.
If they tried using DMCA, though, then the issue of intellectual property wouldn't matter. It would simply be a question of whether the wording of the law applied. Look at the MPAA-vs-2600 case. MPAA wasn't able to show (or even hint) their intellectual property was being violated, but they won anyway.
Thus far, your analogy holds. The error lies in associating the emulator with a knock-off blade company. The emulator is replacing the razor, not the blade.
Except that in this case, the long-term dependence is on the server, so replacing the server is replacing the "blade". The "razor" is the Everquest client software, which enables use of the Everquest servers.
So the argument is that you should pay a monthly fee if you connect to someone elses servers?
Let's talk again about an all-too-familiar subject: Canadians and their antiheroism-oriented canards. But first, let me pose you a question: Are Canadians actually concerned about any of us, or do they just want to tap into the national resurgence of overt deconstructionism? After reading this post, you'll indisputably find it's the latter. The law is not just a moral stance. It is the consensus of society on our minimum standards of behavior. An inner voice tells me that if we contradict Canada, we are labelled ribald sullen American clones. If we capitulate, however, we forfeit our freedoms.
Maybe some day, Canadians will finally stop trying to make conditions far worse than could ever have been the case without its blockish efforts. Don't hold your breath, though. It's astounding that Canada has found a way to work the words "mediterraneanization" and "incontrovertibleness" into its shenanigans. However, you may find it even more astounding that if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of their ethics, one is promptly condemned as uncivilized, self-absorbed, prodigal, or whatever epithet it deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. The bottom line is that I have put this post before you, without any gain to myself, because I care.
But one thing just strikes me as odd here. There are plenty of examples of people making clones of clients to utilize proprietary servers and their respective protocols (think ICQ and AOL's Oscar protocol, folks), but there aren't so many people making clones of servers which proprietary clients can utilize. Is there much of a difference between the two? You're still cloning proprietary software and interfaces either way, and in the case of ICQ and Oscar at least, packet sniffing sure doesn't seem to be an illegal way to develop a client -- though I don't know if packet sniffing is all that the fellowes at HackersQuest are doing...
IANAL by far, but I am kind of curious what a good lawyer with some international law experience would have to say about all this fun stuff.
jer
And that paragraph 9 is enforceable in the country of the author (which I don't think it is).
The question posed is about what happens if the code leaves the US to another country, the no-reverse-engineer clause becomes non-enforceable in that country, someone in that new country reverse engineers, writes specs, writes new code, and then the new specs and code make their way back to the US.
No US law has been broken (since the 'infringements' did not take place under US jurisdiction), so presumably this has the same effect as 'chinese walls'. The intellectual property in question does not belong to Verant.
John
John_Chalisque
Thanks! That section in particular is a really interesting read.
I thought about 'fair use' somewhere in there, but I figured I wouldn't confuse the issue any, especially since I'm not that familiar with anything complicated in the copyright code--but now that I have that link, I might just get familiar with it.
I take it a computer with a CD-ROM drive and a sound card counts as a 'digital recording device', and therefore my non-commercial use of it is fine, eh?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Gotcha; I haven't played those games, and therefore didn't realize it was an issue. I'd like to try EverQuest, but I wouldn't pay $10/month for it. I'd be willing to pay, say, $30 up-front, and maybe $50 if I knew it was a really good game and could test it out (a la Q3DEMO)...
Actually, I think I'll look into Mangband instead; that looks like fun, and it badly needs a graphical Linux client...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Who says you have to reverse-engineer it?
;)
All you have to do is just keep trying to connect to the guy that is... who never purchased a copy, either.
He analyzes the packets and writes the server, and occasionally says, "Hey buddy, try to connect to this machine, will ya? I can't get it to work yet..."
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
This should imply that obtaining the client is free (or a minimal physical cost, cost of media plus art + instructions) and playing on the service is a small monthly charge, and in return you get access to the online community and ideally, only pay if you use it.
Depending on the company, the users either love or hate this model. This gives the game developers much more control over how the game is played. Ideally, they could use this to bring the user into an even richer environment and enhance the experience, but many abuse this control (Ultima Online anyone?).
Their cease and desist letters are to be expected since a free (or minimal cost) client plus a free server would totally cut them out of the revenue stream. These server emulators threaten their very business.
I'm sure if Verant rationally and non-threateningly explained this to the server emulator developers (and maybe offering them a job wouldn't be out of order), they would see their point of view and realize that they may be hurting a reasonably decent company (you could do worse than Verant).
But barking out cease and desist orders pleases no one, and they are effectively drawing battle lines by doing this, a battle that they will certainly lose.
Well, then I guess it depends on whether I'm quoting Phinn or Beta, doesn't it? Didn't Beta always say "freaking"?
--
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Thate depends on whether you're quoting "Family Guy", or my former cow orkers.
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The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Except that in this case, the long-term dependence is on the server, so replacing the server is replacing the "blade". The "razor" is the Everquest client software, which enables use of the Everquest servers.
Ah...you are right. In the case of the server emulator, this would be take away from the continued revenue stream of the original company.
I was focusing on the Playstation case, which is probably inappropriate in this thread.
It's nice to see a non-violent AC.
--Lenny
"People still buy your game, and they still use your game. They just aren't connecting to your server. Boo hoo."
You must be kidding, right? Why pay the $10 a month to play on some slow, overpacked, lame server when you could play on your own and invite your close friends to boot?
The real money for Massively Online Games is the ongoing subscription payments. They could probably give the client away free and not feel it, but if you steal their subscribers, you're in trouble.
In my opinion, if you agreed to an license, it's your own fault. You didn't have to agree. No one forced you to play EverQuest.
I think you're making this a little more complicated than it actually is.
Last time I poked my nose into something similar on EQ (their beta test servers, which still run to this very day on the latest-and-greatest patch that hasn't hit the "public" servers), there was a simple file IN the EQ directory that told it what DNS names the appropriate servers were to be called on.
Change this file (might have encrypted it by now) to point to your "favorite" server(s) instead and... no more Verant.
To hard-code a particular IP address into the client is just plain suicide. Get ticked off at your ISP not providing sufficient bandwidth for your title? Too bad, you can't switch, unless you want to tick off all your customers. Someone-or-other did this (Westwood?) in one of their games, made things even more annoying whenever you had to reinstall everything (due to the inevitable build up of useless crud in a MS OS), because it couldn't see anything beyond your LAN until you updated.
Better than just doing DNS lookups for a particular address is to do what (I think) EQ has done, which is to have the ability to CHANGE what DNS lookups the client uses. Obviously when the client first connects it has old information, but as it gets patched the new information gets handed to it and off it goes to bigger and better equipment.
Verant has had this problem as they've upgraded systems from time to time, where the old systems are overloaded, but people have a hard time getting the patches in order to get on the new equipment.
By the way, I don't work for Verant, nor do I know a single person who does. I never even talked to one of their dungeon master weenies. Hell I haven't even booted up the game in 2 or 3 months. I just work in the industry... and talk to other people in the industry...
Moof!
So even if you developed a clean-room server clone that stood up to legal scrutiny, end users are prohibited from using it. In other words, you might be able to defend the creation of the server, but nobody can play on it with a real Everquest client. The players don't own the software, you know. They just have a revocable license to use it with the official servers under its terms of service.
Frankly, I don't understand this argument. But I may be misunderstanding the nature of this free server.
You go, get the source for the free server, and build it. You start running it, and tell people that you have a free Evercrack server running, so come on over and use it. No more monthly fees!
The boys at Verant find out, and they say that anyone that uses that free server will have their licence revoked! No more playing on Verant servers!
Well, crap. Now I've got a game that only works on a free server. My life is tough. What're they going to do otherwise? Come to my house and take it away? Sue me?
Taking action against the guys building the server seems to be the only way to go, and from what I'm reading, the Verant guys are standing on somewhat shaky ground.
Of course, I neither play Everquest, nor know anything about the server and how it's implemented.
--
"I don't know if anybody has noticed, but I derive no small amount of pleasure from telling people where they can cram it." -Me
And windows is free?
SB.
Blizzard tried to stop me when I created Bnetd, but they had to back off after the story was posted here at Slashdot. (http://slashdot.org/articles/ older/980411091225.shtml)
-Mark
As I said yesterday, Hackersquest is copying a copyrighted world, actively in use by hundreds of thousands of people. How is this legal?
They are not copying the world. Think of the EverQuest client that a user runs as a glorified dumb terminal. Portions of the world are downloaded and displayed on their screen. Now connect the client to the emulated server. It is another world, not EverQuest at all. What is downloaded now is not anything created by Verant. This, to me, should be legal.
If they used any of the EverQuest content (models, textures, etc), that would probably not be legal, and would probably get them nailed with copyright infringment.
If Verant can't create an experience worth keeping people on their servers, thats their problem, but I don't see some guy running a server on his home computer as a threat to their revenue streams.
All this nonsense about Emulators being illegal or not right is crazyness. Do people who say such even bother to stop for a second and see how much emulation is going on out there on a daily basis?
F /...
Take for example TV wonder products. One comes out, with a patent. Great! Now you can mop in 1/1000 of the time, and clean your cat. Sure you can't copy the exact design... they have a patent on it. But you can get damn close, and emulate the same functionality exactly. This happens all the time... and is a corner stone of American choice.
Computer Emulators are the same thing... you are emulating the functionality of a *PRODUCT*. You aren't infringing on someone's intellectual property or stealing revenue from them, you are doing exactly what you are allowed to do in a Free Market Economy. People need to stop treating computer software as some symbolic thing and treat it like what it really is... a basic product, no different than a quart of bleach.
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Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
This clause has no legal meaning outside some US states. Meaning that if you don't have to agree to it. I use to consider the "I agree" button as saying "Install".
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Outside hamburgerland, "Agree" means "Install".
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Of course this is assuming they *did* agree to the EULA or even bought the product in the first place! :>
-Ducky
http://duckpond.org
Actually, I'd be reluctant to call it a Chinese wall. Chinese walls, so named after the Great Wall of China, are an artificially constructed/enforced separation between two groups, preventing all communication between them about certain matters. It's most commonly seen in securities firms, where one department is not allowed to have access to insider information from another department for fear of FTC violations.
Come to think of it, that doesn't sound so far off after all. I'd still go with "clean room", though.
I've never played EQ. Does Verant make a lot of money off of the $10/month, or is that just to cover the cost of the server and some admins, etc.? In my mind, there's a difference between using your client SW EULA to require the use of your non-free servers because the servers are really the cash cows, versus just providing the server for a nominal fee so that players have a trusted venue for playing.
Bottom line: as in so many other issues I see here on /., if you're expecting to use the U.S. legal system to make up for your inadequate technical preparations to keep a worldwide community of users and hackers in line, you've got another think coming. See sig.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Well, if the packets were created by anybody it's by the user's actions as they manipulate corp. X's client. So by that logic your actions in the game are (C) you, just like anything you create with Photoshop is (C) you.
A better question would be, does the game's over-the-wire protocol count as an anti-circumvention measure under the DMCA? We've already seen that pitifully poor cryptography is eligible for protection; how about just obfuscated bytes on a wire? Distributing a server which understands this protocol would then be illegal under the DMCA. It's a scary thought...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Even in the U.S., anything delivered by email doesn't have the force of law. You can at least hold out for a registered letter. IANAL, of course.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I think it might be because SMB isn't theirs. Too many thumbs were in that pie for anyone to claim ownership of it. IBM, for example.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Theft of services? What service is being stolen?
Or do you consider competition for services to be theft?
If I sell (or give) a GPL'ed program to someone and then charge them for custom mods for a while, and then one day they decide to use another programmer to do their custom mods, is the new programmer stealing my services? I don't see how.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And if you don't connect to Verant's server (you connect to someone else's server instead), then not paying Verant isn't theft, because you are not using their server.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
CSS is not a copy protection system.
It is a content protection system.
It is very simple to copy a DVD (i've seen it with a DVD-R writer).
Except this isn't true anymore. The US has passed several laws which enable people to sue foreign countries (and companies) for confiscated property (Cuba, in the Helm-Burton law) or sponsoring terrorism (Iran). What happens is that the assets of these countries which are in the US can then be used to pay the damages.
Helms-Burton has never gone into effect; Clinton has been signing off on the 6-month delays built into the law ever since it was passed. But Iran was sued for funding Hamas (Iran actually lists, in its official budget, line items that show exactly how much money they give to groups like Hamas and Hizbolah), after a Hamas bomb killed an American in Israel. I don't know if the money was actually taken from impounded Iranian funds, though.
Anyway, the point of the story is that if you have ANY assets in the US (such as banks that are US-chartered), you could end up paying out in a civil claim.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Someone in Norway screwed up...
As a rule the US corts are ignored by officals of other nations.
The United States is a super power and the down side of that is other nations look and say "Excuse me? You want us to hand over one of our people becouse he broke one of YOUR laws? Really? Go to hell"
I don't know what happend in Norway that made this posable however I suspect people in Norway are pritty ticked off about the idea that people in Norway can be shipped off to annother nations cort... The US of all things... over one of the USes more insain laws.
I don't actually exist.
Have you looked at the site? What about the fact that they've collected all the Item information from the database so they can load it into their server? You don't find this at all questionable?
I think I'll go create a program that sniffs Amazon.com, collect their database, and then create a new site with it. pulling updates from their server at a regular basis.
And more is done on the server side now then ever. Since people can't just allow a game to be fun, they have to try to destroy it with stupid hacks. If you want to hack, fine,just don't play the game loser. Go back to Diablo with your level 520 Character with 1e25 hit points.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
The RIAA and MPAA are just another cartel for controlling what Joe Public does. Thankfully the US is just one country and there are plenty of countries in the world where governments do believe in indivual rights, not just apparent ones.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Reminds me of a story I heard that ten or fifteen years ago, the Khomeni government of Iran sent extradition letters to the US State Department demanding that Michael Jackson and Madonna be turned over so that they could be put to death for violating Iran's obscenity laws.
Of course, Khomeni is dead now and all of his lawyers went to work for the US entertainment industry...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
IANAL.
One thing with EULAs - they are unlikely to be binding if you do not explicitly click "I agree" to accept the terms of the agreement - unless UTICA (may-it-rot-in-hell) or other legislation explicitly states otherwise. If you placed the CD in the drive, and simply copied the files without having the agreement presented to you, then it would be hard to say that you agreed with something you didn't get to read.
Some EULAs may have a clause that states something like "by using this software you agree". If you simply copy the files to your hard drive and started reverse-engineering without ever running the program, is that "using the software"?
It may even be possible to install the software normally without reading the user agreement. Most Windows software seems to install in pretty much the same way, despite the varying front-ends. If this is the case, you could write your own installation software that simply places the software on the hard drive without displaying the EULA. Most "Setup" programs run as a fairly standard wizard, and it is not hard to write your own Setup wizard using something like Delphi.
If such bypass software became commonplace, then the software companies may change their EULAs to prohibit their use. It would be nice if the companies instead made EULAs freely available to the customer before purchase, but companies that actively bribe^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobby lawmakers to pass UTICA would be unlikely to display this sort of honesty with their customers.
I find the idea of licence agreements that you have no opportunity to view before purchase to be patently dishonest. The sooner this practice is stamped out the better.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
> the US legal system can be nasty
Lucky he's not in the US then?
(Note for Americans: the bit of the world across the salty water isn't the US. Does that make it clearer?)
Two words:
Game Genie
I think you're actually on very good ground distributing a patch to the client so it can connect to another server. At least, if you can afford to get the case to the Supreme Court, because Sony can buy off any lower court.
Players just need to move to non-UCITA states in that case.
In the case of EverQuest, no intellectual property is 'stolen'; virtually all IP there is resides in the client itself. The server merely tracks locations and some actions; namely the ones that, if client based, could allow cheating. It is a pretty clean reverse engineering for compatibility.
I have been working with the various UO(Ultima Online) server emulator teams through the years and we have had minor complaints and letters, faxes, etc.. but no real action has been taken to my knowledge. Right now there are piles of servers running "Sphere" possibly the fastest/best UO server emu- not to mention some servers with over 1000 active accounts. Early in the development of a different emulator(uox), one of the devs put in a few lines of code that would verify that the person connecting to the server had an actual origin account, this was of course cracked quickly, though it did seem to make osi happy.
-XtAt
- about me
Really? You can't have many phones where you live, then...
The emulator can be developed for a version-frozen version of the EQ client.
--Chris Brown
The bad blood existed with the first EULA that made people "agree" not to reverse engineer their product. Verant intimated their own bad faith in that EULA, and telegraphed that their intention is to provide a monopoly service and they'll make sure that you'll never compete with them.
Bad Blood by saying you have to use our product this way and we don't want you to reverse engineer it? I agree it bitchy to say that but i din;t think it's generating bad blood in and of itself. Ignoring a companies communications is much worse that is likesaying "FU" to them, then egos kick in. That's like saying agreeing not to sell 1000 copys of this video you bought and sell them is bad blood. It's called protecting your interests.
On the patent issue, i agree, if they haven't patented it then there's alot more to it. What about copyright tho? Im nota copyright lawyer.
As for ignoring an email, in the US email have been used in court many times so they carry some weight at least as evidence. And never ignore when someone threatens legal action against you at the least consult a lawyer to protect yourself. If your lawyers says worry about ti you respond "please direct all correspondence to my lawyer here." That can sometimes make them back off if they realize that there is a real legal fight and they don't have any grounds. Ignoring a problem does not make it go away.
this space for rent
Yes but what about using a proprietary protocol to open up a competing service without compensating the protocol developers? If this protocol has restrictions then they should be honored. If the creators have no problem with it fine, but if they do some sort of deal should be worked out at the least. Talk with them don't ignore or antagonize them, that just creates bad blood.
And if your sent cease-and-desist letters ignoring them could show bad faith to the courts. Never ignore any legal document sent in any way. At the worst just reply saying your lawyers are looking into it or something. Ignoring it does not make it go away.
this space for rent
Maybe you're thinking of "Chinese Room?" As I remember, the Chinese Room was an analogy used by a philosopher (Searle?) to make a point about AI and computers. That analogy was something along the lines of:
Imagine a room with with two slots in the walls. Inside the room sits a man with a massive instruction book. Outside the room, there are people who speak Chinese who play a Turing-test like game with the monolithic room: they write down questions (in Chinese) on pieces of paper, and insert them into the room through a slot. Inside the room, the man doesn't speak or read Chinese. But his book contains an infinitely large set of instructions: for each set of (unintelligible to him) symbols he sees on the input, he writes down another set of symbols on another paper and sticks it through the wall. The book was written by someone who understands Chinese, and contains an "intelligent" answer to every possible question he could be asked. The man doesn't know this, however... So the people outside the room submit questions, get answers, and conclude "The room has intelligence!" But inside, all that's going on is a rote following of instructions...
I think the point was that simple passing of the Turing test didn't mean intelligence; that humans have something a machine could never have (at least, a machine as we know them). There are responses, rebuttals, and counter-rebuttals of course...
It seems particularly applicable though to clean-room reverse engineering... except the engineer is what's in the box. Instead of having the book, the engineer gets the input and output... and it's his job to write the book.
"The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum does not vary."
Everyone here is interested only in one thing: is this illegal? What kind of question is that.
I like to write software, infact I like to write free software. The reason why the software I write is free because I want it to be free. But, I have the option of charging money for the software = I have the option to get paid for my job.
The question here shouldn't be is it illegal or not. The question should be is it right to do that. Laws are supposed to be guidelines for how the society should work. If Verant wants to charge people a fee to play the game, they should have that option. Remember, they did make the client which all of you have praised here. They have done a good job, why not reward them? If the price is too high for your taste: don't play the game.
Would you like to live in a world where you couldn't ask for something back for what you give?
I have to ask this, because it's been bugging me for a while. What's the point to doing this? So Verant doesn't get their $10/month?
Yes, you already paid for the game in the box. However, there is still maintenence in the game, plus there are paid GM's that handle customer service issues, there are servers/bandwidth they need to maintain, etc. It costs a lot of money to host a game with 200,000 players. I guess they're just supposed to foot the bill for all those T1/T3/whatever connections, huh? Maybe they should just sell the game for an extraordinarily high amount of money, and not charge at all per month.
The other thing people say is "EverQuest is running a monopoly." No they're not. Sure, Verant is the only company that can host EverQuest servers, but they are definately not a monopoly. There's Ultima Online and Asheron's Call that are in the same genre. There are a bunch of games in development (Horizon, Atriarch, etc) that are in the same genre of EverQuest. Verant is not trying to stop other companies from making MMORPG's, but they are trying to stop people from running EVERQUEST SERVERS. I don't see at all what the problem is here. If someone can explain it to me better (I'm sure I'm not understanding something correctly) PLEASE tell me.
Personally, I'd like to know, so that if I do wind up doing a client/server thing like this, if it's legal to get an insulted slap-in-the-face when some hacker decides that I (the creator) am not worthy of running it.
In a perfect, domestic-based world, maybe... But
in our world, this is a pipe dream.
Sony is a multinational (or global, if you prefer that) corporation. So, depending on circumstances, Sony America would be likely to try and get the more localized Sony offspring to take up this case.
Those crazy EverQuest nazis have done all sorts of things already, mind you -- halting eBay auctions and the like (though I honestly don't see the appeal of EverQuest. A massively multiplayer RPG with aging graphics, populated mostly by powergaming twinks who don't know the first thing about roleplaying... ). If that's any sort of indicator, they're going to push this until they get their way.
And, to make things worse, the theory of escaping the US subsidiaries doesn't seem to work too well -- DeCSS fiasco, anyone? Like the MPAA, Sony could likely pull strings in all the markets it serves.
Perhaps I worded my original statement incorrectly.
What I meant to say was veriant requires you to pay a monthly fee to player Everquest. This is enforced by allowing/disallowing access to their servers.
I don't know this for a fact, but hypothetically, it could be like that 'give away a pc and make them pay for the isp' type of deal. If it only costs them $1 per person per month, but they charge people $10 per month, then this is removing a revenue stream for Veriant.
How is this theft of services?
Because you have to pay a monthly fee to play everquest when you connect to one of their servers.
Historicaly whenever the purveyors of content and the players have been owned excusively there have always been problems, US: cinemas & film Co's, UK: Breweries & pubs. Can you imagine if you could only buy your tv from CNN?
I might be way off topic of course, I don't play games.
~ppppppppö
cow orking, now that sounds fun....
~ppppppppö
Going for around 40 bucks from most places. If they gave the client away for free, they'd probably have a much easier time convincing people that it's worth their money. They used to say give em' the razor, sell em' the blades. This is more like sell them a really expensive razor with no blades, make them pay for expensive blades each month. Just not a concept that appealed to me, but obviously ALOT of people have learned to live with it.
The DMCA outlaws the circumvention for any reason even where you have a *fair use* right to the material. It is the circumvention itself that is deemed illegal. That is what makes it bad.
The DMCA only outlaws circumvention that allows people to circumvent copy protection. I sugest you send Varient a letter back asking under what legal ground they are asking you to stop emmulating them. That is probably your best bet to figure out how to get around it. You cant fight an enemy you cant see.
Wow man,
If that all works out you're gonna get blown a lot. You should try to schedule all of them on the same day and tape it. Then you could sell the video right next to the one of the woman who did like 500 guys all in one day.
That would be awesome! I should make a list of all the people that can blow me. I wonder if my wife would object?
--
'...let the rabbits wear glasses...'
Y2038 consulting
Uh oh.
Does US citizenship have a click-through license?
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Seems to me that this would fail under the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence argument.
Even if your logs are clean, there is nothing to prove that someone didn't send an unlogged email with decompiled assembly code, f.ex.
The US legal system made quick work of Jon Johansen over in Norway. (had the local police arrest him and his father and confiscated their computers) And that's a civil case too. I wouldn't be so quick to assume they won't come for this guy too.
This EverQuest we are talking about.
I don't have the EQ packaging anymore. But I have
read the EULA for EQ. They specifically forbid
using their product for reverse engineering. In
fact...they can change the agreement anytime they
see fit and really don't have to notify you...
just a general post. Of course, where these
things are forbidden by law this does not apply.
Honestly, the EQ EULA reads like a contract with
the devil. If they so wish, they can terminate
the license and inform you that it is now time
crack your cd in half.
To legally create a server for EQ in the US. You
would probably have to watch TCP/UDP packets and
have nothing to do with the client software.
Someone post some juicey nuggets from the EULA...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
With Everquest, you buy the client software. These guys are doing nothing with Verant/Sony's client software. They aren't distributing modified versions, or anything.
Microsoft can't sue the samba developers because its possible to use a UNIX server instead of a Windows server.
Would it be legal for Microsoft to place an addition to the Internet Explorer/Windows EULA in the next service pack of Internet Explorer/Windows that their browser may not be used to connect to any server not running Windows NT/2000?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
This is also the same company that trampled all over Sony's Restaurant. An unfortunate restaurant owner, whose nickname was Sony, pronounced "Sonny," named her restaurant after her nickname. This restaurant was started long before Sony was even selling products in the US, and yet they still sued her for trademark infringement. Not having money to defend against Sony's lawyers, she had to give in. Hell, she should have been able to sue *them*, especially since they now have restaurants at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco. Sigh, unless you've got deep pockets and the willingness to put up with the ultimate time suck that is a lawsuit, it's better just to stay underground, and like the parent post says, get the source out.
Walt
This must be how urban legends get started. The story is mostly true, but I got a lot of the particulars wrong. If you want details go to this link.
See section 16 of the license agreement which states that the License Agreement is goverened by the Laws of the State of California.
Since this is quite explicit, I guess you'll be wanting to watch the progress of the DeCSS case.
This project still has my mistrust. If they really had the high moral objectives of providing a FREE online game that was truly superior to everquest, they would build their own - not re-use Verant's propreitory protocol (which EternalQuest does), and their sucky front end.
It would be a lot easier to get a community of developers to work on such a project because the legal standing would be so much clearer.
Writing a server which supports someone elses client and protocol is a significantly larger body of work than writing your own client AND server.
Lastly - what is Ashran going to do to stop people using tools like ShowEQ to cheat at playing on his servers? Is there going to be any value to end players in playing on them? Or will playing on them be open to l4m3rz and d00dz as thus not investing any serious time in?
Oliver
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
Then they'd have to write their own client, and they don't want to do that.
Personally I find it very strange that they are more interested in stealing the EverQuest client as their front end and having an ongoing process of reverse engineering, than in writing their own system and having none of these hassles.
Ashran is either stupid or has dubious intentions.
Oliver
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
This is a rather important question.
Verant regularly update the Client, and quite often the client/server protocol changes.
So which version will EthernalQuest use?
Is it going to free at using a particular version of the client? Or are they going to leech patches from Verant? Or are they going to hack the client?
Once again - reverse engineering the server and writing a compatible server is a far more considerable job than writing your own client and server.
Is Ashran just stupid or is this masochism malicious?
Oliver
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
Firstly - how is EthernalQuest going to be protected against people cheating using things like "ShowEQ" or finding new exploits in the EternalQuest server and stealing other players' items.
Cheats in a single player game tend to take most of the fun out of the game, or turn it into a "tour" mode.
Cheats in a multi-player game? How long would you play chess against someone who reserved the right to undo the last move or two any time he chooses, such as when you win.
Lastly, is it legal? No. There are lots of ways Verant can come at Ashran over this, many of which are covered by international laws, most of which are readily supported by section 16 of the license agreement, and plenty of which are covered by the legal angle being taken in the DeCSS case, since Verant's servers are providing a service, and the clients are simply the means of accessing that service.
Service impersonation is just one angle they could use. Regardless that your service is free, infact even more so, regardless that the author declares it non-comercial. It directly attacks the service being provided by the EQ Client/Server combination, and does so by impersonation of the service provider.
Pretty good legal basis for a case.
Anyone who counsels Ashran that "Nobody will take this case" or that "they'd have to push that through international courts" hasn't really thought about just how many different aspects of law this touches on, and how few aspects of solid defense it covers.
Oliver
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
I thought that copyrighted works had to have a copyright notice of some sort. So unless the packets start with:
char Copyright[30];
There may not be an issue.
Of course, IANAL.
The cake is a pie
Business risk is, in this case, slightly misstated. A smart company will already have figured out that the blade market will be suspect to copycats, etc., and will have built the cost of the lawsuits into the revenue they expect to get from the blades in the short term. The question shouldn't be if the copycats come in, but when.
As such, what are the razor blade manufacturers, faced with a copycat blade maker, supposed to do? You'd rather they sit back, and relax while their primary revenue stream is taken away? Despite the fact they probably have funds stashed away j.i.c. some copycat shows up?
The company has to protect its property (in this analogy, the patent on the blades), or the investors in the project are getting screwed over. I don't know of any way to fix this, but it's a critical notion in the transition to the new economy. The old money isn't just going to go away.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Take a look at UO server emulators, there is nothing illegal about them. It may violate the License Agreement, but that just means you can't play on their servers.
They didn't take the source code from the Everquest server, your analogy is irrelevant.
It's emulating a server environment, it's not copying anything! It's made from scratch-reversed engineerd wholesome goodness in an easy to swallow geltab. Your copyrighted world exists on your computer, they are creating whatever they serve, not the world.. everything but the world...
> It isn't stealing service, it is providing a competing service.
.. providing a service at a significantly lower price (since the price they "charge" is $0.)
One *might* call it "dumping"
At least they aren't doing it for money, so I don't see how anything they are doing is illegal.
I agree.
Never mind the fact that you NEED to OWN a copy of EQ before you can even play on the emulated server.
There is no theft of service going on here.
> , but have a way for the client to connect to it, since the client has no method of choosing to connect somewhere else.
:)
With UO, it was trivial to tell the client which logon server to connect to.
Even if you can't do it with EQ, you can still setup your hosts file to not have EQ go wandering across the inet for a connection. (Good 'ole ip masqeraiding and NAT
Someone moderate this up.
It's nice to see SOMEONE understand contract law around here.
Before you call someone clueless, you might want to look into the differences between sentences and paragraphs. :)
Don't feel bad, I had the same "huh?" reaction the first time I read the post, then figured it out on the second go. :)
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
It does it with a middleman program to reroute the packets. ;)
>You do the math. Has ANY game ever received over 2M in revenue per month? Sheesh.
DOOM
The best thing to do is to contact a lawyer who handles patent cases. Most lawyers will do an intial consultation for a small fee or for free.
You can check to see if the company has a patent by looking in the ibm patent database.
This will allow you to speak to someone who actually knows the law and you will know if you are safe or not.
Look in the yellow pages under attorneys, there should be some free legal referral services listed.
What on earth are you talking about?
"You can't compare software to devices, or aparatus."
Yes, in many cases that is correct.
"Most certainly the design of the razor is patented, and through that patent, only one sort of blade, with the proper attachment mechanism can be attached to the razor."
Who said anything about patents? In his example, he didn't say the device was patented, where is this patent talk coming from. Obviously, in his example, you are supposed to assume the device in question isn't patented.
You are making no sense.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
In my exp. it's not that bad anymore. From what I've seen it's about 1-10% (10% is on a really bad day).
Fyre
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
Ah, but that reasoning depends on the great debate over whether Intellectual Property exists. I know slashdot is full of people who think property has to be tangible, but fortunately the world in general recognises Intellectual Property. Under this thinking, natural law does protect one's rights to ideas, speech, code, music, etc.
Addlepated - punk & metal
if they are changing the user agreement with each patch, would it not then be possible to use and older version of the software (client side) and interface with the Emulator server...? I would think that they reason they can legally update the user agreement is because they are updating the program as well. IE after it is patched it is not the same program, so the same old user agreement does not apply.
mov ah, 0
mov al, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Thank you WTO, WIPO, all those congress persons that voted for the DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, and anyone who upholds copyright and strict licensing agreements. I will just have to make sure none of my money or votes ends up in your dirty evil little hands.
Without the work and support of the people a country and a company have no intellectual property to protect. -Caleb
Legal advice here. The above advice not legal advice. Consult your own attorney.
Gee, next time someone asks me a techinical newsgroup, I should respond similarly:
"Well, in C you can use a pointer to function for callbacks. The above is not software advice. Do not act upon it. You must hire your own local software engineer to tell you the same damn thing."
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I can't comment on the legality of emulating the server code and communications protocol, but in the Everquest case I'd assume the server needs to use significant quantities of the art assets from the game. For example, when the server is moving NPCs around it needs information on the world geometry for collision detection and path planning.
If you run the server on a seperate machine from the client, you'll need two seperate copies of the geometry data, when you've probably only paid for the copy on the client machine.
Are you distributing geometry data with your emulator? In this case I'd say it was definately illegal.
Chris"Think about it this way; I download an emulator, fill its content with unpleasant sexual material and advertise "RapeQuest" or "Ultima Paedo Edition". Ought not the creators of the original server application to have some protection against this?"
Protection from what? That people do what they do in their own free time? Taking apart things and making new creations out of products they've legally bought? What? What?
Wether customers are phaedophile, rapist or viewing "unpleasant sexual material" is not something a corporation should be concerned with. Neither are they responsible of others' misuse/creative use of their products. In fact, corporations shouldn't be ALLOWED to rule over people, that's for the governmental bodies to do.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
No, but the textures remain on the client. The server simply sends a packet to the client. The fact that the client then uses that to pop up the copyrighted image (which the client owner has already paid for) isn't a violation.
This is technically true, but there is a lot of courtroom precedent that adds up to say that, if it substantially "looks like" a purchase, it effectively is one.
This is why, for example, the EULA on MS Windows doesn't prevent you from transferring it to other people (i.e., selling the software to someone else when you're done with it). Earlier EULAs (don't know if they were necessarily from MS) had such stipulations, but the court held that, if I pay you $200 for a product that comes in a box, it's still effectively a sale, and if I want to resell it (or copy it for my own use, or whatever) it's still allowed. The user has purchased a license to those images from Verant. Under US law, he can essentially do whatever he wants with them as long as he doesn't copy them for commercial gain without the copyright owner's persmission. It would clearly not, for example, be a violation of the law to take a screen shot of your character in Everquest and make it the background of your desktop. It is arguable that it would be a violation for you to post it on your web site, however. But when it's within the four walls of your house, and doesn't leave it, you have wide latitude to do whatever you want with all of the copyrighted materials you have a license to - books, art, software, music, whatever.
As far as I can tell, the clearest precedent for this would be Sony's own Connectix case. It seems quite plausible to me that, under US law, the server would be protected under the same argument. Essentially, all the EthernalQuest folks have done is reverse engineer the protocol (the same way, say, Samba did SMB). Sony and Verant probably have little or no recourse against the people developing the server. There is no more a copying of the world's data than Samba copied all of Microsoft's corporate servers.
Now, there is the practical matter of the EULA. It prohibits running these servers, or playing on them. UO has a similar prohibition. Essentially their only recourse is to shut down your regular Everquest account (which shouldn't affect your ability to play the EthernalQuest version). OSI does this ocassionally to UO folks, but they don't make a habit of it. Number one, it'd be almost impossible to find out if someone is running or using such a server. But, even in cases where they have people talking about it publically, they don't usually do anything. They save it as a selective enforcement tool to have an excuse to kick off people who complain too loudly about the service.
The fact that Verant is sending cease-and-desists doesn't necessarily mean they intend to persue in court. Sending such a letter gives Verant no obligations, and costs almost nothing. So, why not do it - the coders might just roll over (or so goes Verant's thinking). I've also go some question as to who would do the suing - Sony or Verant? Verant seems to operate the service, but I think it's Sony's property.
Sony as a corporation has a real tendancy to keep running into the same wall again and again and again - Beta...MiniDisc...Memory Stick - hey guys, how about using an OPEN format for a change, maybe it'll get some acceptance... So, even though they are the precedent that seems to support the Hackersquest folks, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't just run right over that cliff, again.
am I mistaken -- or does the worldforge website have a web bug on it? My adzapper proxy is refusing to display the web page in its entirity (sp?), saying only "1x1 transparent GIF" ... If I'm wrong -- I appologize -- If I'm right -- is user tracking a principle that an open source project should support? Food for thought ....
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
IANAL, either.
Cease and desist letters can be serious, your ignoring them can set you up for nasty damages come the actual court case. You really need to get a laywer forth with to write a proper reply as to why you feel you are legally in the clear.
Now IS it illegal? The answer is its grey. I'm not a lawyer but I worked for one of the leaders in the field of online gaming and have heard the arguments. The strongest intellectual property argument I've heard has nothing to do with patent, so don't be misled by that-- it has to do with Copyright. Copyrights recognize not just the work, but the organization of the work, where that organization is considered significant. The argument is that a private protocol is a significant organization of information and thus protected under international copyright law.
You can argue about this back and forth as to whetehr it's right, but its up to the courts to decide the legality not us and the precedents are decidedly mixzed and unclear.
Now if you happen to live in oen of those "copyright free" piracy havens out there that aren't signatories to the international copyright law, its probably irellevent.
I don't know if that clause was in there from the beginning but if it wasn't then IANAL but I don't think that Verant has a leg to stand on. Otherwise it's like saying "Here, buy this program under this license." but then later coming back with "Oh, sorry there are some bugs in the software we sold you. This patch will fix it but first you have to agree to this, this, and this." I've never played the game but I assume that if you don't have the lastest patch you can't connect to their servers. So this amounts to you being forced to agree to the new terms, toss the game in the trash, OR make an emulator! :)
.ch is Switzerland.. and I'm from Austria =)
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
The perl argument is a poor one- especially since it makes no sense.
Perl is dual licensed- GPL'd *and* released under the 'Artistic License'. I can't imagine anyone having a problem with a port of perl to another underlying language. The whole EverQuest issue is also different- they're not porting readily available source code, but reverse engineering protocols to build their own servers.
How is this similar again?
-Ash
I feel server emulators are/should be legal, but then again I feel reverse engineering is/should be legal as well and open source should be fully embraced. But didn't the Digital Millenium Copyright Act basically put an "end" to reverse engineering (or is trying to)? If this is the case then using the DMCA arguement, server emulation would be illegal in the US.
---------------
-- sed s/liberty/profit/g US.Constitution
Connectix comes to mind here; they make a variety of Mac emulators, such as Virtual PC and Virtual Game Station. Sony sued them over VGS, their PSX emulator. As I recall, Connectix won, because they hadn't copied the PSX's BIOS to write their emulator. The way I see it, these server emulators should be entirely legal if the developers did their reverse engineering without copying any of Verant's code.
Other parallels: what about OpenNap? I don't exactly know how that works, but I don't think Napster has sued anybody over it.
The EULA only applies to the person that uses the client to access Verant's servers. I do not see how it applies to someone that is creating a server emulator, if he doesn't use their client. IMHO
Setting up a sniffer wouldn't be covered under the DMCA, since the _packets_ aren't copyrighted material, just the code and the exe.
I know I'm playing the devil's advocate here... but maybe Sony doesn't expect to win (in this particular case, ignore all other Sony cases for right now). They *DO* however, need to show their stockholders that they are doing *something*, or else they do stand to lose a substantial amount of money on negligence.
I understand that the folks in your project are probably too far along at this point to consider taking another path (and one that will take alot of time; no instant gratification here), but when you're ready to stretch your wings and expand beyond the limitations of your current project, we will still be here, and you're welcome to drop by!
I Am Not A Lawyer.
There are a lot of websites that use code that is very similar to slash, and was often designed by people analysing what slashcode does and rewriting it. The copyright does not belong to Slashdot. Rob et al would not consider claiming it did.
Umm. Yeah. Although reverse engineering is getting a specification from a piece of sftware, so I guess packet sniffing still counts.
I wouldn't call a program that performed the same function a derived work though. Just like I wouldn't call one physics textbook a copy of another if it happened by some sheer coincidence to contain the same physics.
Yes. Assuming its stealing the same story. Does Scoop have the same story as Slash? No it just has the same functionality. I'm pretty certain you can't copyright functionaility.
Graphics.
One of the biggest difficulties about designing a UO or EverQuest style game is all of the graphics that have to be made. In these games, however, graphics are always client side. So the server side, the side being emulated, doesn't even have to think about them or know about them. It just has to know what is where and tell the client that information.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
The person who owned the lan hardware did not agree to the license agreement and is not bound by it. The person who actually purchased the everquest software would not be invovled in decoding the protocals, they would jsut be playing the game.
-jef
Nope, computers with CD-ROM drives do NOT count as recording devices under the AHRA. Otherwise you'd have to pay the RIAA tax when purchasing a CD-ROM drive.
Further more, you don't know a damn thing about Canada.
In certain circumstances, it is permissible to decompile object code, provided the object is to create another program which is compatible with the one decompiled, but which does not replace it.
And
If your purpose is to make, say, an add-in or a plug-in, you are permitted to decompile and reverse engineer a computer program, by virtue of the European Union's Software Directive, which is enacted in UK law as Section 50B of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
And the relevant section(s)
50B.--(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program expressed in a low level language-
(a) to convert it into a version expressed in a higher level language, or
(b) incidentally in the course of so converting the program, to copy it, (that is, to "decompile" it), provided that the conditions in subsection (2) are met.
(2) The conditions are that-
(a) it is necessary to decompile the program to obtain the information necessary to create an independent program which can be operated with the program decompiled or with another program ("the permitted objective"); and
(b) the information so obtained is not used for any purpose other than the permitted objective.
So what they are doing may not be legal under UK law if they are decompiling and reverse engineering with access to the server Binary/code.
Have a look here for the the copyright act
http://www.rgcj.co.uk/patlaw/index1.htm
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Here's an analogy; I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source. When the GPL zealots come breathing down my neck, I claim to have "reverse engineered" a slashdot "emulator". Do I have a case? Like hell.
Obviously not, as you've said, since porting implies translation of source code, which entails looking at the original. If you can prove that you've recreated all the functionality in a clean-room environment (a la Compaq with the original PC), then you're home free.
The other thing would be that the GPL zealots couldn't come breathing down your neck unless you released the compiled Python bytecode without the source. If you don't release anything, they have no case.
IANAL. Usual disclaimer applies.
.exe hack.
.exe, and I'd be liable, because I let something modify my executable? Or because my old-sk001 antivirus program inserts a self-check into my Everquest executable?
This does sound like it would require some kind of IP stack interception, or a client
That said, I was under the impression that it's okay to modify files on your computer, even if they're not technically owned by you?
I mean, look, theoretically, a virus can overwrite part of my EverQuest
I would hope not...
"Chinese Walls" is a term used to refer to barriers within say a company or department (govt.) An example is in a law firm, where different lawyers may be working on opposing cases (maybe not directly, but related), so they should be seperated by some means to avoid conflicts.
two is: in order to form a binding contract with them, you have to be an adult (not a minor below age 18-- minors cannot form binding contracts and should apply for all the magazines, CD clubs, etc that they can [this is why to purchase a car, a minor needs an adult cosigner])-- unfortuantly a credit card is legal proof of being an adult (i.e. an adult cosigned for you).
To form a contract, you also cannot be drunk or inebriated, not forced to do so under duress (a gun to the head), and be of sound mind (not insane).
I was drunk when I first installed the game, and I tend to grab a beer while waiting for any new patch to download (and have finished a couple by the time the EULA pops up). And my work 'forces' me to install windows, so their EULA's don't count either. hoody-hoo.
---
IANAL, but I think that's a good idea.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
Actually, in the EU, reverse engineering is SPECIFICALLY legal. There was an EU directive which has been incorporated into most of the member states legislation which grants you, if you own a legal copy of the software, to decompile it, to disassemble it, to watch it calling things...
There are provisos about what intent justifies these actions: hacking about with, say, Word to produce a filter to load Word documents would be covered, because Microsoft won't document the format to allow you to use the files {IANAL but as I read it, if they'll TELL you the format, you're not supposed to reverse engineer it}. The intention of those provisos would seem to be to prevent people being locked into file formats that then fall into disuse and hence to be unable to access their data, but they're pretty broad-ranging.
Now under UK law, the fact that that license attempts to remove a right granted by legislation would render the whole thing void - this is why Microsoft includes a magic phrase something along the lines of "within the limits imposed by relevent local laws".
The free software movement really ought to aquaint itself with the EU laws in this respect. Hint: taking apart DVD encryption so YOU can watch the movie YOU own a copy of is another one of those "specifically allowed" things...
Hmm, by that definition drug use and prostitution should be legal by now. (In the US I mean, where I live they actually are).
IANAL, but I think only in a criminal trial can you not be made to testify against yourself. In a civil case, that is not so.
On the other hand, if you can't afford a lawyer, it's better to ignore them than to issue a response that you'll regret later.
IANAL either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
More to the point, I think, is that the client has the textures etc. because the consumer has already paid for them. Using these textures should then be considered fair use.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
All information is copyrightable.
The information is created by a product controlled by Corporation X.
Sorry, but wrong. "Information" is not copyrightable. In U.S. law , for things to be copyrightable, they must be "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression". In other words, copyright is only available to creative expression, but not to facts or non-creative compilations of facts, although copyright is available to creative compilations of facts.
For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly and definitely ruled that "white pages" phone directories (an alphabetical list of phone subscribers) in FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO., 499 U.S. 340 (1991) are inherently not copyrightable, saying "[The copyright law] does not afford protection from copying to a collection of facts that are selected, coordinated, and arranged in a way that utterly lacks originality."
And more to the point, the packet stream from the emulator is not "fixed in any tangible medium of expression" and is therefore not copyrightable in itself. An analogy to make this point clearer: let's say a group of comics has developed a brilliant comedy sketch, it gets the audience rolling in the aisles and people flock to see it performed live. The comics never write the sketch down, and never have a performance recorded. Then another group of comics sneak into some shows, memorize the sketch, and then start performing it for profit. Under the U.S. law, there is no copyright violation here, at least until the first group of comics record the sketch (although there are probably other laws against this). Going back to packets, a stream that reproduces an already copyrighted work is copyrightable and reproducing it would be an infringement, but a stream that implements a communication protocol (e.g. a POP3 session, exluding the mail bodies) is not copyrightable.
The packets are, at least, a derivative work, copyrightable by corporation X.
I don't belive the packets meet the definition of derivative work, which is: 'A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work".' "Based upon" is not the same as "produced by", I believe that the definition clearly implies that to be a derivative work, the original work must be recognizable in the derivative work.
Umm, if you're getting Cease-and-desist letters, you really probably shouldn't just ignore them. Even if they are totally full of shit, the US legal system can be nasty.
Isn't HackerQuest based in China? I don't think the US legal system has any pull there what so ever...
Josh Sisk
What about Free Battle.net servers? While several places have free Battle.net servers so that a group of people can play together, others could use it to play over the Internet with useless keys and burnt CDs. That would be circumventing the copy protection of a game; because of this Battle.net key problem, I'll never give out my key to anyone!
You are right about Europe. As far as I remember about Austria, their laws specifically differ from the rest of Europe. It should be checked out by professional lawyers, not by us.
They still could change their protocols to some extent, though.
Just some thoughts. You know it's funny, I used to play MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) quite a bit and at the time MUD's were basically an online text game based on D&D rules especially Diku style MUD's. Well, as they grew in popularity they started to attract attention from companies, notably TSR/Wizards of the Coast of which tried to sue the Diku group. Consequently, the Diku group is NOT located in the U.S. but I don't understand law at all so I won't comment on it.
Most MUD developers and players felt that this was just a new medium in which to run a campaign and would not hinder TSR sales. Now, I played one MUD (It was being run on Slackware :P) in particular which tried to emulate closely the 'Forgotton Realms' style, but they changed some of the game rules around to fit this new medium better. Now, about 4 year later I installed EQ and start playing it. It's basically THAT particular MUD that I played which a 3d interface slapped on top. I remember having mixed feelings about it at the time. Supposedly the Diku group discovered that Verant had taken their open source server code and used it. In the Diku code the authors explicitly say that the code cannot not be used for commercial purposes without consent of the authors. I have heard through the Diku newsgroup that the Diku group got some consession out of Verant for this but I cannot confirm this. Obviously, since Verant has Sony backing they can keep people quiet.
Alot less is done server-side on Everquest in the interest of reducing lag which can be very annoying if you happen to be travelling in a group. Thus, almost the entire game is handled client-side. Don't try to tell me how it works, I've played it for years and have read all of the technical documentation about it. Other games may be different, but Everquest is *not*. This isn't just some "stupid hack", it's an emulator of Verant's servers which is quite possibly illegal, but it's not some hack to ruin the game, just an attempt to copy it which isn't going to work very well since you can only run one zone at a time. They aren't trying to "ruin the game", they're merely attempting to free it from Verant's evil clutches which get very annoying if you've ever played the actual game for any length of time. It'll probably fail where all others have because of all of Verant's legal BS (yes, they WILL find a way to get rid of it, no matter what the actual laws say, they have better lawyers and they know it). BTW, I never hacked on Diablo, heheh, I may have duped items from time to time, but I'm not going to just sit by while you try to tell me that my lvl 50 char wasn't the product of good old-fashioned hard work and having nothing better to do. =]
Ok, here's the problem with your arguement. You obviously don't know how Everquest works internally. All of the software/graphics/important stuff goes on on the user's machine itself. The emulator merely emulates the Everquest servers, which don't actually do much at all except for tracking the players and the mobs in the game. The only thing which could possibly be a copyright infringement issue is if they somehow could copyright the protocols which communicate between the servers to the clients, which is doubtful. The server emulator is only 400k in download size by the way, while the Everquest client itself is >200MB...somehow that shows you the relative importance of the two...I doubt that Verant ever copywrote the server because of its unimportance, just the client. Their loss.
AZspot
Wouldn't that be twice removed...(now definitely bringing copyright to the forefront) i.e. first emulating the original program, and then using it for the purpose of satire/parody which is apparently legal in copyright issues. The second product would probably not be legal since it uses the full Ultima name. Ever heard of the joke game called Pyst which is a comedy parody of Myst? Then there is the whole issue of free speech.
But isn't HackersQuest in another country, where this is definitely legal? Verant can't touch them!
From my understanding these guys don't have access to the server source so how can they possibly be ripping off it's IP?
In effect since no one has reverse enginered said source it is a clean room.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Think about it this way; I download an emulator, fill its content with unpleasant sexual material and advertise "RapeQuest" or "Ultima Paedo Edition". Ought not the creators of the original server application to have some protection against this?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Truth be told, we're just trying to find ways to dance around the legal issue.
Nope... if that was the case M$ could sue EVERY ISV for using it's copyrighted API's, OpenFile widget, etc.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
--- Submission is feudal.
Everyone who posts to /. either is or is not a lawyer. Most of us are not. Therefore, IANAL should be the default assumption.
Also, those few posters who really ARE lawyers inevitably say, "This is not legal advice, laws vary by region, yada, yada, yada."
Finally, the caveats seem to be designed to do three things: 1) convey information as to the posters education and qualifications--and therefore credibility 2) warn others not to try using the posters comments in court as evidence/legal interpretion. 3) avoid liability if someone violates 2).
Imagine this: "But your honor, some guy on the internet named fLaMMiNg_HeX0rRz said that I could do [whatever]! And he said he was a lawyer!"
So, let's all save some bits--quit saying IANAL!
That's all, and thank you for your support
I didn't know they had wild giraffe here! I thought they brought them over from Africa!
Why do I keep typing pythong?
Actually I think that clause has been in from day one. I don't have my EULA in front of me right now but I remember noting that when I installed EQ (on the second day it was available in stores).
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
It's also my understanding that the licence has mostly to do with the online service, I can't see verrant cancelling acounts , since that would be shooting themeselves in the foot. IANAL and all, but I really can't see how this in deferent than the usual, "selling compatible blades for verants razors" idea.
I think the DMCA would only apply if this was an attempt to break a copy protection scheme (CSS in DeCSS's case). Clearly the protocol is not a copy protection scheme, but a communications protocol, which in my opinion would not be covered by DMCA.
Because you have to pay a monthly fee to play everquest when you connect to one of their servers.
But if you use a different server, you are not even receiving service from them, much less stealing it. What it really is is diminisment of services, which isn't a crime - it's competition. Verant just needs to make sure the events on their servers are more interesting than those on free servers - $10/month worth more interesting.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
My e-mail always seems to get through, except of course when Hotmail craps out on me... (damn Microsoft bastards...) Perhaps you're thinking of ICQ? I can send a message to someone who's online, have it show up in my message history, and they never got the damn thing... =) Go figure.
In the case of EverQuest, I really don't see what the problem is. People still buy your game, and they still use your game.
Then you aren't paying attention. They aren't making money off of game sales, they're making money off of the monthly subcription fees to be able to actually PLAY the game (Don't get me started,...) If you can go play for free on "ServerX", why would you allow yourself to be dinged for that extra $10 or so every month for the honor of playing on the "official" server?
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Origin has placed into the license agreement of the UO Client that it is illegal to play it on a non-Origin ran server. They have not been able to touch those writing the emulators, just those who bought the client software.
Continue to do what you need to do to get this emulator out. If you are not from the US then there is no need to listen to any US companys.
As of right now, i think that you would be able to defend a court case in the US. You can reverse enginere(SP) a server if you wish.
i think that we need to start a class action law suite against Stupid companys like this one, the RIAA and the MPAA. I think it is pretty ovious that the RIAA and the MPAA are ogloplies(sp) and that Verrant is acting like little children.
Sanchi
nuf said
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
No they weren't. In fact Sony had to drop the case and refile do to some errors in the case. I don't think it's come up again and Connectix is going full ahead.
http://www.connectix.com/ company/press_cvgs_jun2900.html
Ignoring lots of stuff is OK unless it's something you need to sign for, or is delivered by a sheriff. But if you are ignoring, don't tell everybody that you're getting them. better to preserve "plausible deniability".
When you are a defendent, there is a layer in between, your lawyer, who can ask questions like "how do you know my client got your letters?"
I'm with this suggestion all the way.
<rant mode="RMS">If it requires a person to buy some proprietary client to play it, what right-minded person would want this game anyway? ></rant>
I do not have a signature
How is this theft of services? That's like saying that the Samba project steals from Microsoft by implementing a compatible protocol. The Everquest emulator people are writing their own code designed to interoperate with a commercial product.
-John
The first option is that if the European Commision has some guts and decides to defy the US in that the DMCA (as proposed to them by the WTO) is not compatible with European laws, all trade-war hell will break lose.
The second option is that the EU, facing a devastating trade-war with USA, decides to give in and implements a law similar to the DMCA.
Now, to me the second option sounds far more plausible than the first one...
In the face of cutthroat corporatism as protected by DMCA and UCITA, the answer to the first question is "no" and to the second "yes".
Perhaps you're right, but not for long.
WTO will take care of the rest of the world.
Yes.
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
See, there is no real legal basis (other than if they buy the law, wich they will try to do) behind stopping people from emulating a server. Verant just wants to keep people stuck with their servers so they get their money payment. But even then verant shouldn't be too concerned. The EQ servers are expensive machines and if any large player base tries to use the Hackerquest server who really has an expensiver computer to dedicate to it? (well looking at the other game servers out there i wouldn't be that suprised if there were) Also the game is not quite the same when you leave the real base rules. /shrug
Teamwork is a bunch of people doing what I tell them.
So no one can EVER write a new FTP server because it emulates a current version?
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Be careful with the "plausible deniablity" stuff. It's usually used if there is a layer between you and the illegal/unethical activities.
If you are getting the C&D e-mails, you can't plausibly deny that you didn't get them or were unaware that they were sent to you without actually lying. Although it's become far too common (personal thought there - IANAL), lying while under oath is not just perjury, it's the surest way to undermine ANY legal system.
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
from the posts thus far, i've seen two major points of view: it is legal to have an emulator or consult a lawyer. neither povs have any real new merit other than normal common sense arguments.
so, in an effort to be helpful, here goes my 2 cents:
okay, so you've violated the eula by reverse engineering the udp packet codes (requests and answers) to make something compatible with the eq user's client program. according to the same eula, what can they do to you? revoke your account. you've just nullified those bucks paid for the proggy.
still assuming that the eula is completely legal and will hold in a court of law, it states that the laws of the state of california apply in all instances where the eula might be in dispute. now, since you have been writing this emulator in another country, international law also applies, in so much as getting government agencies to work together to force you to be liable for the "crimes". kind of akin to killing someone in one country then running for the border.
so, right now, verant has to do the following.
a) cancel your eq account with verant servers
b) contact california law to start a case (filing the case against you)
c) contact your country's own legal system and negotiate some sort of forceful response (assuming that you don't comply with their requests at this time)
d) assuming either of the above cases come about, the case will be held according to california law (which i have no clue what might come about from that: cease and desist, compensation, etc.)
and not to mention that anyone that connects to your servers (and how you intend on that working might also change the any ruling that might come about) will also have their accounts cancelled, if caught.
so, yes, get a hold of a lawyer.
and one final consideration. is it worth verant to pursue this? i'm sure verant isn't going to do a cost analysis and just assume that it would.
Doesn't the constitution say something about the enforceability of laws? Like, to be a law it must be resonably enforceable? So if enough people use these "illegal" emulators, (or DeCSS, or anything for that matter) is it even possible to make a law against it on the grounds that it is unenforceable?
If it *is* illegal, would you stop? Would you fight it? Would you ignore it? Would you change enough so it's only *technically* legal, but still violating the intent of proprietary uses?
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
"The easy way is, of course, to put an entry in your HOSTS file to change the IP address of patch.everquest.com, but if Verant simply makes the client go to a specific IP address instead of a fqdn, then the only way to connect to the Server Emulator is to modify the client and NOW they've got you. You may be able to get away with putting up a server, but the legalities of modifying their client (which, of course, you are licensed to use but do not own, grrr!) is much easier to convince a court to prohibit."
In that case, you just create a proxy server which translates the hard coded IP address to your own without changing their source.
When you log on to EverQuest you have the ability to patch and get all the newest mandatory updates plus optional ones depending on your version of EQ (Kunark or not). Then once that happens the license comes up and you can either agree or disagree to the terms. If you agree, you get to play. Otherwise, back to your desktop.
Maybe if you had a good idea once in your life you could appreciate people trying to protect theirs.
FUNK!
I dont think it's a question of if they 'deserve' the money. What the hell? How can you judge if someone deserves $2 million. It's a conflict over the protection of ideas and hard work. I'm sorry but no matter how you look at it, this emulator is wrong and, in my opinion, a waste of time. Why dont they just create their own ideas and make their own game instead of trying to steal someone elses?
FUNK!
as a long time member of the Ultima Online emulator community (specificaly UOX and UOX variants) I can tell you that quite simply, there's nothing they can do about it... IF IT IS OPEN SOURCE once it's open sourced then there's nothing that can be done to stop it.. even if they tried they wouldn't suceed Origin finnaly decided that as long as nobody was making any money off it, there was no problem that's what'll happen with verant.. the only reason you've gotten these letters is because they've got Sony behind them.. OSI just had EA... and where's the contest for deepest pockets? :)
The first option happens all the time. Two examples that have dragged on for years and years are beef and bananas.
US beef is not permitted into the EU because growth-hormone enchanced beef is not legal here. The US refuses to label the hormone stuff, so none of it is allowed in. (The US proposed a label to identify hormone-enchanced beef, the label read "Approved by US Dept of Agriculture" - true!)
US has been jumping up and down about this for years without much happening.
The US and the EU are both big boys when it comes to trade, each accounts for about 30% of the world's GDP. Neither one is likely to submit to pressure from the other.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Thankfully the DMCA doesn't apply to us folks outwith the USA.
I followed your link and the site it took me to is all in some frog language.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Okay, fine. Why don't we get a Judge on staff at Slashdot. That might cost Andover a little more, but think of all the, uh... good that could be done if we bought-- er, I mean hired a Judge.
--brian
Doesn't reverse engineering cause the train to roll backwards?
arrested for DeCSS even though he was a "foreign nationsl", or suing others under California Law even though they are not even in California. I think that it is safe to say that some companies (i.g. Sony/MPAA) will spare no expense to enforce what their 'idea' of the law should be wherever they can buy off somebody to do so.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
http://www.lyrics.ch/search.html I remember this site going down and his mentioning that he is getting C&D's left and right. It irks me because I needed the lyrics to my newly pirated mp3's.
"I am Master of Nothing."
Ive been using emulators for around 8 years now, ever since i found some of the cool old coin op games in eu format. Ive played on UO emulated servers and they wernt half bad, much better than paying Origin for their crap service and just about as fast. A emulated Everquest might give me reason enough to dust off my old EQ cd, that and it would be nice to know im helping to do my part to piss off Sony megacorp, those bastards need all the kickin they can get. Sony is poking the great dragon that is the global internet users with a sharp stick, i hope they dont stop, because its not funny until the dragon is wide awake and angry. Orc
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
Well, I'm not so sure that they won't go with the second option of defying the US. There is alot of resentment towards americans and the way the US likes to think of themselves a the "global government" here in Europe. And the EC have made trade embargos with regards to the USA before IIRC.
"Umm, if you're getting Cease-and-desist letters,
you really probably shouldn't just ignore them."
He said he was getting Cease and Desist EMAILS,
which is not the same as getting certified letters.
You probably should not respond to pseudo-legal
letters of demand sent through email. Why would
you want to provide any evidence that a person who
may sue you can use?
If you find yourself in a situation that may require a civil suit, use certified mail for your correspondence. Try to have the preponderance of
evidence, since that's all that matters in a civil case. (No beyond-a-shadow-of-doubt here!)
Perhaps clue your lawyer in on the emails, but
don't reply to them. When they send you a certified letter demanding "cease and desist", hopefully they will overstep what's permitted by law, giving you the upper hand.
It probably won't get ugly until a restraining order gets filed. You'll have talked to your
lawyer by then, right?
Damn I hate stupid USAnian laws which they try to enforce elsewhere.
(I might have messed up the letters of that thing)
Most states do not recignise shirnk wrap licenses. The DCMA specifically authorized reverse engineering for interoperability. You server will not work with their clien unless you reverse engineer it. You can probably argue in court that the clause of their license is invalid. That is not only are you legal (since you are reverse engineering for interoperability which congress clearly intened via the DMCA), but end users could be legal too.
In any case you need a lawyer, which I am not, to send a threatening letter back to them. In the early rounds they can't do anything. Once they bring you to court you counter sue them under anti-trust acts, and harrassment acts. As the little guy juries will tend to agree with you. But you need a lawyer to plan the stragity, and that will cost $$$. (I wonder if the EFF is interested. saddly they might not have the money to fight your case)
IIRC, copyrighted works do not have to have any sort of notice on them. Many publishers and others do put notices on their works for clarity's sake, and to give them additional leverage in court if it comes to that. If a work doesn't have any copyright notice on it, the defendant could claim that he didn't know it was copyrighted. This wouldn't help him win the case, but it may help limit his liability when it comes time to hand down the punishment.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You're probably right, but we don't have much choice. We can't afford any politicians of our own.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Iomega *licensed* to epson, but they didn't get along well, and the deal was cancelled.
I want to say that Iomega wasn't happy with Epson's prices, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure.
You confidently say "it's legal here". You may end up being unpleasantly suprised by just how long "the long arm of the law" ends up being. Even if you have specific legal cases that you can cite, you're very likely to end up in court, even in Austria.
--
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Documented in many locations is the fact that anything derived works are held under the same rights as the original, unless otherwise given up..
Rob doesn't have to claim it is, legally it is, unless he's specifically given up that right to someone else, or the public domain..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Sure you do, depending on how the "port" was done. In the traditional sense, you'll be writing your own python code, complete with your own copyright. Perhaps you've implemented it the same way, using the slashdot code for reference (even using some of the same function and variable names). It's still new code, inluenced by, but not derived from the original slash code. Where you might run into problems is if you do a "literal" port. That is, covert each individual perl statement to its corresponding python statement (assuming the two languages are 100% functionally equivalent). Then your code would be more of a translation than original code. However, virtually no "ports" to a new language are done this way.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Carnivore violates the DMCA!
How delicious.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I don't know much about Greyworld, but UOX3 has always been open source. (I don't recall if it was GPL'd, but the source was certainly available.) I remember this because I could never get the SOB to compile on my Alpha.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
You can't compare software to devices, or aparatus.
Most certainly the design of the razor is patented, and through that patent, only one sort of blade, with the proper attachment mechanism can be attached to the razor.
The blade, also being an aparatus with a very specific attachment mechanism, is patented.
So, now we have the razor blade monopoly.
This is simple, blatant, anti-competitiveness.
Indeed, and is specifically forbidden in Europe.
I believe the Samba team mostly reverse engineered the SMB protocol, which was'nt properly documented.
It seems to me that if I were creating a prototcol, I'd just make sure that the client and the server must exchange copies of my copyrighted logo as part of the authentication process. If you tried to write a server to use with my clients, my clients would barf because you didn't send down the proper (copyrighted) authentication. Same the other way.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
You'll notice that one of their demands is for the physical address of the person who posted the copy of DeCSS. Once you do this, they can then send you an actual cease and desist order, instead of an email that carries no force of law.
Any letter from you to them can only provide them with ammunition. Any communication from you whatsoever should be from your lawyer, not you personally. You simply cannot benefit.
I'm not talking about Epson. I'd remember if it was Epson, I'm talking about that French company. I believe it was Nomai. They also produced a 500MB removeable drive that was like 1/2 the price of a Jaz.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Remember a few years back when someone (Nomai I think) started to make disks and/or drives that were compatible with the Zip? Iomega got really pissed and sued them left and right.
I think that Nomai wom in court, but in the marketplace Iomage kicked their ass. Nomai's "Super Floppy" was just too cheap for people to trust I guess...
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As I was saying, you may be able to challenge the agreement on various grounds (including asserting that "it's a sale"), but that doesn't mean that there was no agreement to begin with. An unconscionable or otherwise invalid contract is still a contract until it has been found unenforceable. And in practical terms, some terms of EULAs seem to be enforceable, and UCITA promises to make this even stronger. You consider such agreements "meaningless" at your own risk.
There are a variety of things that could be challenged about such an agreement and there are many clauses companies routinely put into contracts that aren't enforceable or that don't make sense. But if you choose to violate the letter of some contract you are a party to, you better have a good idea beforehand why you should be able to do what you are doing. Otherwise, you may be facing a lot of liability.
All is well in the town of Hackerville when people only create nice and friendly server emulators. Emulators that let you or I or your Aunt to have a larger list of servers to connect to to play our ultra massively amazing multi-player online games. But this is a good use of reverse engineering in order to create alternatives to closed access server deamons. What happens after this though? Say you have a piece of software that updates itself over the net and uses a proprietary method of server-client communication. On the merely principal of the situation someone goes through the enormous effort to reverse engineer said protocol. Once the protocol is published the original creators have no edge of the competition which then incorporates it into their software or some jerkface uses said protocol to maliciously insert virii and bad sorts of things onto people's computers; through a service that is normally trustworthy. If a company gets thrashed due to server emulation is it still such a good thing?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The reason that you isolate the programmers from the sleuths is to avoid the appearance/possibility of copyright infringement. If I write a program that does function X, and you look at my code and write your own version, and your code turns out to be similar to mine, then I might have a pretty good argument that your code is derived from mine.
I don't see any chance of that happening with HackerQuest (at least on the server). They haven't even had the opportunity to see EverQuest's server code, so there's no chance of HackerQuest being a derivative work of it.
If they ever decide to clone the client, though, they would indeed need the isolation that you have described.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, the analogy is that you sniffed the packets between your and Slashdot, and also perhaps disassembled your web browser (the client). From that, you cloned Slashdot, without ever seeing the Slashdot code.
If you do that and "GPL zealots" come breathing down your neck, you can righteously laugh at them, because your case will be rock solid.
It sounds like you believe that ideas are IP, rather than specific expressions.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No way.
The DMCA doesn't conform to European law.
Second, there are some laws herte which make it legal to make copies from books, cd's and videotapes for use at home.
It is quit legal to copy a software CD-rom and put the original in a safe and use the copy.
If I were creating an online game and wanted to block unauthorized servers, I would obtain a patent for the communications protocol. This could be as simple as getting a patent for a data structure that is passed, or as complex as a patent for a new encryption or compression algorithm.
Then I would have the option of shutting down servers not only based on copyright law, but also using patent law.
I'm under the impression that they haven't done this, fortunately.
As of yet I do not believe there has been any determination in the US courts as to whether it is legal or not to place restrictions on reverse engineering as part of a license. Of course if somebody can just send a piece of software off to another country to have it legally reversse engineered its rather a moot point. This seems like a pretty big loop hole. Too big, I suspect to have the court system allow it. So either they'll have to declare prohibitions of reverse engineering invalid or declare that anybody using an illegaly reverse engineered item (even if it was done in a country where legal) would be subject to the same penalties as if it had been done here.
So, apply the standard IANAL here, but if you are in a country that allows reverse engineering you can probably file those cease and desist letters in the garbage.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Actually...
Packets are information.
All information is copyrightable.
The information is created by a product controlled by Corporation X.
The packets are, at least, a derivative work, copyrightable by corporation X.
Sure. And Ford motor company removed a revenue stream from makers of horse drawn buggies, horse breeders, etc.
That's not illegal, that's just the changing business world.
Can you imagine a company called Shelters and Missions Inc. suing the Salvation Army because by providing free food and shelter to the homeless they were removing a potential revenue stream? It's ridiculous, and that's how it'd be if Verant claimed the same in this case.
If a 20-user server with one or two volunteer GMs can draw users from Verant, then their service obviously isn't worth much. But they have a lot that will keep drawing people, paid GMs with more time to write quests and massively multiplayer world that aren't possible on end-user machines. If with all that, they can't hold onto any users, it's their fault for doing it badly.
Nope. Their EULA isn't legally binding (unless you're in one of the stupid states where the government was briber to pass the UCITA). So you can do whatever you want, with regards to reverse engineering, etc. The DMCA doesn't apply either because you're not cracking content protection systems.
Yes, I'd prefer it if companies followed the law. But, obviously companies like Verant and Sony break the law all the time and like it.
If you sell razors at a loss, to build a market for blade, and don't plan to compete with the inevitable competitors, you're a fucking moron, and deserve *no* legal support. It's not the place of the courts to give every moron out there a monopoly on some product. The whole idea of a free market is that people are free to do what they will.
Why not? Now that he's finished the DeCSS case, Kaplan's probably looking for work...
You may be a lawyer, but if so, you're a hideously bad one. I suspect you're just clueless.
He didn't confuse copyrights and patents, he said that the DMCA offers a new twist, he was finished the patent discussion and pointed out another law to consider. Like saying "You're safe from fraud laws. The conspiracy to commit laws might be another case though..."
Second, you can't infringe on the IP of something you don't have. Copyrights don't protect against simultaneous discovery like patents do. If two people write a nearly identical book and can both prove they did so independantly, they both get a copyright and neither has committed an offense. Because the everquest servers are not distributed to the public, only an employee would be in a position to commit copyright violation.
They could patent the protocol, people can patent 'A method whereby the post to a message base is numbered 1, thus allowing for "First Post!!!!1!" to be stated...' and have it accepted, but that doesn't mean it'll hold up in court. Hell, judge Kaplan can probably patent his system for taking bribes. But, in the real world, they'd have to show that the server employed some special patentable technology in communicating with the client, which I highly doubt it does.
As for them having the right to control the use of the software. Hell no! Should Microsoft be able to control the use of MS Word, allowing only approved content to be written?
As for the GPL issue, you wouldn't have to release code, as long as you don't distribute anything. And you wouldn't have a 'Slashdot Emulator', you'd have Slashdot, merely ported to a different language.
You think M$ or intel has a monopoly, you should see the state bar assn's ;-P
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
In the case of EverQuest, I really don't see what the problem is. People still buy your game, and they still use your game. They just aren't connecting to your server. Boo hoo. They aren't even copying anything they shouldn't. I mean, what should you care what they do in their own time, and who are you to tell your customers how they should use your product?
You have to pay a monthly fee to play everquest. If you are connecting to a non veriant server you could probably bypass that little formality. This is why they would care.
He said he was getting Cease and Desist EMAILS, which is not the same as getting certified letters.
It's getting increasingly borderline - more countries seem to accept Digital signatures these days, and Receipt of Message notification packets are pretty much built into a lot of email systems. Provided the (Digital) signature is valid under both their and your law, and they can prove you received the message, they may well have a good case.
--
-=DaveHowe=-
In fact, that whole chapter is an interesting read, I highly recommend it.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Is it patented? If not, then the protocol developers have no legal right to compensation for implementations of the protocol. I suspect that the "protected" ideas in Everquest code are not patentable, so they are fair game.
If this protocol has restrictions then they should be honored.
Ethically, maybe, but probably not. The restrictions are technological means to eek out compensation from an invention, not an entitlement. The restrictions are merely an indication that the developers (acutally owners) desire privity, but it doesn't grant them any moral or legal right to that privity. They are not entitled to compensation or even consideration. It would be the nice thing to do, but Verant isn't exactly interested in being friends with these developers.
Talk with them don't ignore or antagonize them, that just creates bad blood.
The bad blood existed with the first EULA that made people "agree" not to reverse engineer their product. Verant intimated their own bad faith in that EULA, and telegraphed that their intention is to provide a monopoly service and they'll make sure that you'll never compete with them. Seeing as the only true barrier to entry in the Everquest server market is economic, they needed to make it more legally intricate to protect their monopoly. They are discovering that this sleight-of-hand is insufficient to protect a monopoly in a free market. Patents are pretty much they only way to do it, because otherwise once something is published, people have a right to disassemble it, see how it works, and reimplement it if it is not patent[ed/able].
Never ignore any legal document sent in any way.
If it was sent via email, explicitly ignore it, unless it was signed by a trusted authority. We cannot allow the justice system to degrade to the point that any anonymous legal document is binds you just because the internet makes it easy to send out a C&D demand.
At the worst just reply saying your lawyers are looking into it or something.
You're right, this might be the worst. The best reply, unless the C&D was sent via registered mail to a specific recipient, is "mv threatening_email /dev/null"
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
If you want a legal notice delivered, there are several options. Deliver it yourself, have a friend deliver it, pay a total stranger to deliver it, hire a process server, or hire a sheriff, ect.
All that matters is that the delivery person fills out the notice of service properly. Using a sheriff can cost more, but carries no legal signifigance in and of itself.
If a sheriff knocks on your door and yells that he has some papers to give you, you _can_ ignore him. If he yells he has a _warrant_, thats quite different - open the door (or run out the back).
There is a catch, of course - a corrupt LEO can invent a "reasonable belief" that a crime is happening and kick the door open, then "realize" there is none and give you the papers. Us citizens and process servers go to jail for this, and while LEO's should, they get away with it 99.999%+ of the time (thank you supreme court!)
What's very important is that you log every transmission between the 2 groups so that you can prove in court that no illicit information passes between the groups.
Well I remember a case ~2 years ago where RIAA successfully sued a citizen of denmark (I believe) for hosting a collection of song lyrics on his own private web server. This btw was a lawuit they filled in the US in a Cali court... Not to mention how more recent such cases in which individuals in other countries are sued in civil not criminal means and handled by US courts. Obviously something is up as if all these cases are filled in the US and deal with US laws when the 'offenders' are noy US citizens implies such things don't matter...
But I'm just basing this on previous cases where foreign law didn't saw they were doing anything wrong, but US law did...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
though it's closed source . . . the one that I picked up after trying UOX was GrayWorld (later TUS and now Sphere). They actually have released a (beta) of a redone client as well. Didn't the UOX site have a page of links to numerous other projects?
--
--
Whom does Larry Wall quote in
Don't go giving them any ideas, dammit! I need Samba, ok?
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
He may not be a lawyer, but you are clearly not a programmer (NAP). What they did was clearly an implentation of a protocol. The way the everquest client (the "software application" as you said) communicates with the server (what they have made) is the protocol in question. He was speaking of weather that could be copyrighted/patented (it would probably be a patent since it is a method of doing something, not the complete software package, which would require a copyright). As far as "Holocaust Everest" goes. You apparently aren't familiar with any other computer game in the history of games. Doom, quake, duke3d, diablo and all sorts of other games have been subject to mods doing all sorts of crazy things. None, to the best of my knowledge, has ever faced legal action unless they specifically tried to charge for their mods or tried to imply that they were a product of the company that made the original game.
This is true, but I also content that it isolates the programmer from the Shrink Wrap License. Thus removing liability.
I totally agree.
Can you say SAMBA? MS could take samba guys out they implmenet windows NT domain controllers cleanroom style, every open napster serer that works with the napster client is in danger all of that.. there are SOOO many products imlpemented like the EQ thing that these guys dont stand a chance in hell on any valid legal ground of trying and winning this case (Sony/Verant) not to say that they wont win.. but really there are soo many examples of this that this really is a weak example... I mean we have the client/server part already out here in use.. how can Sony claim its their IP other than the desing of the protocol which these guys can probably implement cleanroom anyway.
Jeremy
In the case of EverQuest, I really don't see what the problem is. People still buy your game, and they still use your game. They just aren't connecting to your server. Boo hoo.
It's like the consoles. Console makers take a loss on the console sale and make it up licensing the patent rights to produce software for the console. Likewise, MMORPG makers take a loss on client software development and make it up selling time on their servers.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is slightly different though. If he was reverse engineering the erver to create a compatible server then it might cause problems.
Since he is reverse engineering the client to produce a server, which will be its nature not share a substantial portion of the same code, he will probably be isolated in that way.
It is specifically stated in the EULA that every user has to "agree" too that you not reverse engineer any part of the application or its communication protocol for the purposes of cheating or creating a server emulator or anything along those lines.
What if you didn't buy the software? What if your brother bought the software, uses it legally (Pays the fees, etc.), but you, being the Evil Hacker Brother (tm) that you are, decide to sniff his packets going through the house network and out the cable modem/dsl line? No one is violating an EULA (Unless it says you must not let anyone sniff any packets between your machine and the Verant servers). As far as I know, watching a program in action (For instance, watching over your brother's shoulder) does not bind you to its EULA (IANAL of course). Therefore, you can watch the program as your brother plays it, check your own packet sniffer, and figure it out that way.
Well, for one thing, it isn't really Slashdot's responsibility to be giving out legal advice. I mean, it's fun and all to speculate about whether Topic X is legal or not, but when it comes right down to it, our opinions don't mean Jack to the World of Law. This is a discussion board. Anyone coming to Ask Slashdot for advice on a legal matter in place of a lawyer get's what they deserve.
The EverQuest engeneers will have a look at your server. I bet they've had already and have made a very long list of things to change just to make the experience unplayable for hackers.
Point number 2.
Even if EverQuest cannot sue you in States, they can legitimately take you to court as soon as you step on the American soil. That's the law!
And, by the way, EverQuest can simply open a tiny office in Austria and you'd have to kiss your server goodbye - the newly opened office can legally sue you over copyright infrigerment.
Things aren't as simple though. At first (positive thing) EverQuest would have to prove that you are damaging their business. That's easy to do, though. Second, they'd have to prove, that it's illegal for you guys to make a free server. But this one is hard. Why? Because
1. their legal agreement from the old times (from the time your server has been up) does not have a clause about you.
2. you could always move your operations/site somewhere to Russia (haha!) or elsewhere.
Anyway, it's going to be a very interesting legal battle.
Would you call a movie about two happy-go-lucky US Navy pilots in training, one of whom has an affair with his civilian instructor a derivative work of Top Gun? The courts certainly (disclaimer: legal matters are rarely certain) would, and an "Everquest Emulator" looks to be in the same territory.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
When done by a monopolist. Big caveat.
In any case, if one product requires another to function, then it is not clear that legally, you are looking at two products. Taken strictly, your argument would have the implication that it is illegal to sell guns and bullets, or nuts and bolts, or Suzuki engine spares.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Well; you're pretty wrong, I'm afraid. "Look and feel" lawsuits are a tricky area, but by no means ruled out of court.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Truth be told, we're just trying to find ways to dance around the legal issue.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
If they were constructing completely new worlds, with new textures and new landscapes, I could understand it being legal. But from what I see on their site... no, it's not.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
As I said yesterday, Hackersquest is copying a copyrighted world, actively in use by hundreds of thousands of people. How is this legal?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
If your country is a subscriber to the Berne Convention of copyrights, no notice is needed...it is implicit. The US is a member of this convention, so they don't need to explicitly say it.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
If reverse engineering is legal in the case in question (I don't know that it is, IANAL), then building a server is not using their intellectual property, it is using yours. That's how I interpret that clause.
Yet, we seem to be rail away at people who do things "Safe." I.e. Not take the risk of creating new and original games, rather than rehashing the old and tired.
Nice to see a segment of the hacker community will have a future, albeit short and uninteresting.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Mildly off-topic -- but this is Ask Slashdot, right? So why doesn't Slashdot have someone on staff who can answer these questions from a legal standpoint?
Because too many of these issues (DecSS, Napster) are in legal gray areas, a lawyer would be worthless.
Is distributing DecSS code legal? Judge Kaplan says no, the lawyer for 2600 says yes, we really won't get an answer until the Supremese hear of it.
Is creating an Everquest server clone legal? Maybe, maybe not, a lawyer can only argue for it, a judge ultimately decides.
There have been other Server Emulators in the past, the only one that comes to mind is UOX, an Ultima-Online Emulator. It doesnt seem they've had any legal trouble. In Fact, the Everquest Server Emulator got a mention on their site.
It doesn't matter one whit if Origin left the UO emulator guys alone -- this is SONY, the same company which tried to sue the bejeezus out of the Bleem! guys, right?
I certainly applaud your efforts -- Verant and Sony are making disgusting profits off this game ($45 or so Canadian for the game, then $10 Cdn per month? 200,000 or so users last I heard? You do the math. Has ANY game ever received over 2M in revenue per month? Sheesh.)
In my opinion, Verant/Sony has done far to little to deserve this much money -- I recently sold my EQ to a friend. Considering how many people PAY to play EQ, you'd think they could change the spawn points and quests a bit -- the same boring crap over and over again. I can get that on free MUDs, thank you.
But I digress -- Authors, stay anonymous. And you'd really better open your source and get it MIRRORED in case Sony drops the hammer on you. Remember Gnutella, it was nearly murdered in the cradle.
It's the old razor and razor blade analogy. Let's say a razor company sold razors for around cost, and then designed them so that no one else could make blades for them.
This is the Gillette model: give them the razors cheap/free to build up demand for the blades, which is where they make their money. As you mention, console makers follow this model too: they take a hit on selling you the hardware, and make up the money through licensing fees on the games for their console.
Thus far, your analogy holds. The error lies in associating the emulator with a knock-off blade company. The emulator is replacing the razor, not the blade. Recall that the original company gave away that razor at a loss to drum up business. Now some one else is taking that loss for them. Sony no longer has to sell you hardware at a loss to reap money off of games -- you can buy the games for your virtual playstation that didn't cost them a dime. Shouldn't they be happy? They still have their original revenue-source, and now it potentially reaches more customers.
Well, obviously they are not happy because they've been going around suing people. The reason they are unhappy is that in allowing someone else into their market, they no longer have complete control. You mention the importance of control, but I don't think that you take it far enough. This goes beyond simple economics and into power. They know, as Microsoft knows, that controlling a market is how you make the long term money. They don't want to settle for good business -- they want to make the market sit up and beg.
--Lenny
The easy way is, of course, to put an entry in your HOSTS file to change the IP address of patch.everquest.com, but if Verant simply makes the client go to a specific IP address instead of a fqdn, then the only way to connect to the Server Emulator is to modify the client and NOW they've got you.
Wrong, and wrong.
There are ways around this, like patching system calls to redirect to the emulator server.
Then as far as derivative work is concerned, I can do whatever derivative work I want for private use, as long as I don't distribute it. Are they going to sue me if I use their booklets as toilet paper? Are they going to sue me if I cook their CD in my microwave? I don't think so. They just have the right to piss off and get off my back.
Who cares what the fucking EULA says? I'm French, et je m'entrave queudale. Ashram ist aus Österreich, und er spricht keine English. Et voila. It's Verant's fault. They just had to provide a legible agreement. "Agree", "Agree", ça veut dire quoi?
"Bend over and enjoy it!"
But then again, I am not a lawyer...
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
On the plus side, you can't take the pee out of the swimming pool.
- has-been-left-open device, codenamed border collie.
Actually, we've had a lot of success on the piss-removal front, with our enormous dialysis machine. If only we were having as much success with our put-the-cows-back-in-the-barn-after-the-barn-door
What I don't understand is why you bothered doing this in the first place. It was quite predictable that Verant wouldn't like this and might take you to court. And you are cloning a server for a proprietary game with proprietary clients, helping increase the popularity of the very company that's now causing you legal problems.
In some areas, interoperability is important. Open source software really does need to be able to clone things like the MS Office file format and UI. But for something like Everquest, it would have been so much better to start from scratch with building a game that is similar and in the same genre (you could have based the client on any of a number of standalone open source games).
I think this project is not worth spending much time or effort supporting for the open source and hacker community. It may set dangerous legal precedents, consume lots of legal resorces, and cost us good will. In fact, it doesn't even strike me as something that is technically particularly interesting to "hack"--what kind of interesting technical principles are you going to discover?
My recommendation would be this: either stop the development for good and start an open source game effort to produce something in the same genre, or make what you have incompatible with EverQuest and develop your own client instead. I think there are more important and more rational battles to fight.
So, if I buy a car and then use third-party parts for the car (tires, spark plugs, etc) can the car company sue me?
Nobody is 'taking' anything from Verant, they're just choosing not to continue using a redundant service.
Nope, it's a sale. Same as buying a book. You own that book. Copyright law may govern what you can do with it, but there's no way the book publisher has entered into a contract with you, no matter what they may want to claim. Ditto with software.
The EULAs are completely meaningless, funny jokes at best, fraud at worst, and you can ignore them. Click 'I Agree' if you must, if they claim you entered into a contract you can point out that they're attempting extortion.
It isn't stealing service, it is providing a competing service.
Stealing service: using Verant's servers without compensating Verant. End users, not market competitors, steal service.
Competing service: providing an alternate service. End users choose one among many competing services, increasing the incentive for each competing service provider to enhance their service.
Sound anything like market competitors for open source service providers (Red Hat, slackware, Corel, etc.)? This is the central idea behind free markets, and using the DMCA to shelter an anti-competitve monopoly is probably not entirely legal.
That doesn't mean a company like Verant cant try to get away with it and succeed--the people they are fighting in court need to be dedicated to their cause, or Verant basically wins by forfeit. If the server emulator developers expect a court action, they need lawyers preparing their defense today, and really aught to think about a preemptive strike. Take the offensive, get a declaratory judgement.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Writing a dedicated server is WAY easier then writing a GRAPHICAL client. If you have worked in the game industry you would know this.
/.'ers will understand. How many people do you see writing new and innovative GUI's for Linux? Or how many programmers do you see creating a graphical front end for their programs? Because a command line program is easier to get done.
:-)
Maybe I'll use a better analogy that more
Look, it takes a team of 10 to 30 people OVER a YEAR to write a game. Even up to 2 years of your life! The *basic* networking code can be done in a few weeks (allthough it is usually spread out over a few months for tweaking: mostly to deal with lag, and network performance.)
There is a reason games take 1.5 years and cost a few million dollars to produce: Because they are *BIG* projects. You need programmers. You need artists. You need musicians. Here's the perfect example, open source even! See World Forge for how they are progressing.
But dont' just take my word for it. I'm just a 3d graphics programer. Talk to other game developers.
Where's Carmack to speak up when you need him?
Hmm, since Microsoft hasn't crushed SAMBA with it's Fist of Doom(tm), I wouldn't worry.
I think that that would be the tell-tale sign since if server emulators were illegal by any strech of the immagination, the high financed Microsoft Legal crew would have smashed SAMBA into little bits by now.
Instead they try to break it any chance they get.
IANAL, BIWJJ (But I Watch Judge Judy :-))
Up until now, it would have been perfectly ok. You're just creating an implementation of a protocol, and protocols IIRC cannot (and should not) be patented. Even if it is possible to patent a protocol, I doubt that protocol was patentable.
However, the DMCA introduces a new twist. Even if the protocol is not obfuscated, one could argue that setting up a sniffer would be bypassing their protections. It's a stupid argument, but it might be a valid argument under the DMCA.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
That clause should be taken out and shot. Can someone write a version of babelfish to translate legalese?
Secondly, Everquest is clearly, clearly not a "protocol". It's a software application. Emulating it involves replicating its functionality substantially, and this really could not be done without substantially ripping off its IP. In principle, you could reverse engineer the file formats, then do a "clean room" build of the emulator, but this would basically be the creation of a new online game engine, compatible with Everquest (allowing you to take advantage of the reverse engineering for compatibility loophole in DMCA). But somehow, I don't think that this is what these guys have done.
What they're doing is creating an application, using the Everquest IP, which allows you to play a game very like Everquest without paying fees to Everquest, and which is not in the control of Everquest (what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?).
Here's an analogy; I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source. When the GPL zealots come breathing down my neck, I claim to have "reverse engineered" a slashdot "emulator". Do I have a case? Like hell.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Connectix was not successfully stopped from creating a Playstation emulator (not exactly a "server emulator", but I'm sure it involved a bit of reverse engineering of both hardware and software). There is a GPL'ed StarCraft Battle.net server (bnetd). There is also a free Ultima Online server. There are many other examples of protocols that have been reverse engineered in whole or in part. I don't see how Everquest is any different. Of COURSE Verant is scared of this. When companies get scared they seem to instinctively send out cease and desist notices.
-John
Regardless of how nasty the US legal system is, it has absolutely no power over foreign nationals when it comes to civil cases.
--
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Emulators, server emulators, and mp3's are all legal.
Using copyrighted material without permission (purchasing it or otherwise) probably isn't. This includes goods, ROMs, music, video, photos and text, although many of these are often not enforced... (which is how people often use tapes, video tapes, hard drives, photo-copy machines...)
In the case of EverQuest, I really don't see what the problem is. People still buy your game, and they still use your game. They just aren't connecting to your server. Boo hoo. They aren't even copying anything they shouldn't. I mean, what should you care what they do in their own time, and who are you to tell your customers how they should use your product? You should help them, and give them some specs, and they'll like you better, and support you in the future.
In my case, I'm pretty happy with Loki, for example. They produce great games, and they respond to the community. I beta-tested Heroes III, and I bought a copy, too. They added a lot of stuff they said they would, like fullscreen mode for non-root, and I think the map editor is in beta. I just need to ask them if the Expansion Packs will work with Linux, and if I could just get those separately, or if they have plans to port them...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Except in the US, thanks to the infamous DMCA, the EULA are a worthless piece of shit. Most of them are illegal. Case in point, Verant's license agreement for Everquest *IS* illegal in France. It prevents me from reselling the game ... illegal. It does'nt respect privacy laws ... it's illegal and they risk up to 3 years in jail. AND ON TOP OF THAT IT'S FUCKING WRITTEN IN ENGLISH. Guess what, I'd be surprise that any French court let them enforce it ... mwaaah ah ah ah.
It's pretty questionable whether DMCA and contractual prohibitions on reverse-engineering will hold up in court, and doubly so when dealing with a fairly transparent, essentially unencrypted protocol. Everquest's EULA does explicitly bind users of the software not to reverse-engineer it, but even beyond the enforceability of this clause, the end user is also prohibited from using the client with non-approved (read: clone) servers.
So even if you developed a clean-room server clone that stood up to legal scrutiny, end users are prohibited from using it. In other words, you might be able to defend the creation of the server, but nobody can play on it with a real Everquest client. The players don't own the software, you know. They just have a revocable license to use it with the official servers under its terms of service.
My approach to defending against this--if the clone server was made in a defensible, double-blind manner--would start by warning users that connecting to a clone server is a violation of their Everquest license agreement and that they (the players) are open to prosecution if they connect to it with the offiicial software.
You may want focus on a (clean-room) clone of the client. Even an incomplete, experimental one. And then distribute it so that it becomes difficult to determine who is connecting to the clone servers with an EULA-violating official client. After all, if there's reasonable probability that a given user on a legal clone server is using a legal clone client, a judge feel that a request to subpoena IP traffic information logging who was connecting to the server and when would be too broad and invasive.
Just some thoughts. Your lawyer's advice may be very different.
From thier EULA
9. You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play. You may not use our intellectual property rights contained in the Game or the Software to create or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, as through server emulators
Which means, if you you didn't agree to this clause (which, I belive only went in with the latest patch), Evergquest are implicity saying that you have the right to make a server emulator. Else why explicetly ban it now?
There is also the DMCA act - I think that a server counts as 'interoperability', don't you?
And lets not forget the strong legal standing affored to EULA - ie bog all [0].
To me, if you can build a playstation emulator, why can you do the same for a server? Your emulating very similar things (a required interface for the software you purchased to work).
Course, whether or not the courst agree with common sense remains to be seen.
[0] UCITA may have changed that
Mildly off-topic -- but this is Ask Slashdot, right? So why doesn't Slashdot have someone on staff who can answer these questions from a legal standpoint? The question is, or seems to be, a simple one. If the EULA for software says that you may only connect up with the authorized server, is it legal for me to connect up to a different server? Is it really legal for them to put an extra requirement on the client piece, that I did not agree to when buying their box with a cd in it? An on-staff legal advisor at /. could give a quick answer, and do further research. I mean, sure the guy (or gal) would quickly become as loved and hated as JKatz ... but would still be a very valuable addition to the /. staff.
Surely Andover can afford it, right? What's the stock at today?
Another question ... say I buy a piece of software, and agree to some restrictions. Is the company on the other end really allowed to just up and change the terms and agreements at any time? That's fairly standard text in EULAs ... but is it legal? If they change the text, say to include new text stating that I can't connect my client software to any server but theirs, then can I demand an instant refund and return the software to them?
IANAL ... so I dunno. But if there was /. lawyer reading over posts, giving quick answers and then digging into precedents a little bit ... we might have a little more solid answer to questions like this, instead of the fairly standard mob-rule FUD answers we get now.
What is happening with server emulators, as well as many other products (DVD, Playstation Emulators, etc.) is that companies are making a product which requires another product. Then they are trying to control where you get that second product.
It's the old razor and razor blade analogy. Let's say a razor company sold razors for around cost, and then designed them so that no one else could make blades for them. Then, when some other company figures out how to make the blades, you hire a bunch of lawyers and sue them to high heaven.
This is simple, blatant, anti-competitiveness. You can argue that the company depends on it for profits, but that doesn't make it legitimate. If you sell a product at a loss to bait the sale of another product, you are taking a risk. The risk is that your customers may buy that other product from a competitor, or even get it for free from someone giving it away. Using legal pressure to force that competitor to "cease and desist" is unethical and anticompetitive, as well as a misuse of the legal system.
However, in today's society, certain companies seem to be getting away with it anyway.....
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
For EthernalQuest yes. It is specifically stated in the EULA that every user has to "agree" too that you not reverse engineer any part of the application or its communication protocol for the purposes of cheating or creating a server emulator or anything along those lines.
Verant took a cue from Ultima Online and hoped to squash the thousands of private servers before they started.
However I'm fairly certain the enormous hardware requirements to run a decent private server as well as the lack of the semi-refined mob AI will keep the private servers to a minimum.
Now the question of server emulators in general? IANAL but unless it is word for word prohibited in the EULA that you agree to when you purchase and or launch the software in question I'd say it may fall under the "acceptable reverse-engineering for compatability" umbrella of protection.
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The easy way is, of course, to put an entry in your HOSTS file to change the IP address of patch.everquest.com, but if Verant simply makes the client go to a specific IP address instead of a fqdn, then the only way to connect to the Server Emulator is to modify the client and NOW they've got you. You may be able to get away with putting up a server, but the legalities of modifying their client (which, of course, you are licensed to use but do not own, grrr!) is much easier to convince a court to prohibit.
Or are you doing it with a small program running on the client machine that intercepts and reroutes packets (a man-in-the-middle attack)?
If you can do some like this, why not create your own game and forget about duplicating these people's server.
Take the best features, dump the worst, add new things you wish it had.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You have lawyers going after you...
Talk to a lawyer! ASAP!
Get together with a lawyer that specializes in this type of law, and get them to consult and advise you on the issue. Knowing what your rights are is critical to your business and your personal welfare right now, do not act on the advice of a bunch of computer hackers. Some of the comments here appear to be informative, but I am not qualified to judge their merits, and neither are you. Don't fuck around with your legal rights and liabilities; bring in the professionals and do it right.
If you choose to go with the legal opinions of anonymous kernel programmers, you do so at your own peril.
IANAL, and Ask Slashdot most certainly is not either.
Which flavor of IP? Copyright, trademark, patent or trade secret?
switch (IP) {
case ("copyright") :
It is not a violation of copyright to
reverse engineer computer code. If it is
done in a double-blind fashion,
copyright is moot.
case ("trademark") :
Don't use the Everquest name to market
the product, or explicitly and
consistently disclaim that Verant/Sony
has no affiliation and does not condone
the product.
case ("patent") :
Well if it is patented, you're up a
creek. I don't think it's patented,
though, because I don't think it's
patentable. I'd be happy to be
demonstrated wrong.
case ("trade secret") :
It isn't a secret if you published it.
Even with a no reverse-engineering
clause in the EULA, because that's a
legally weak argument (and that's an
understatement.)
}
(what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?)
Only in that the product would clearly be a misappropriation of their trademark. Call it GEORGE-3D and you're off the hook.
I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source.
If you ported it, you own the copyright, you've got control of the code. This can be challenged by Andover, perhaps by saying that a translation of their work violates their copyright like a translation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into Icelandic would be, and they may win, but only because you didn't do it in a double-blind fashion. Let's just say you wouldn't necessarily lose.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
EULAs are of questionable legal standing outside a couple of states here, and reverse engineering a protocol could in no way be viewd as bypassing any sort of copy protection so you should be clear of any DMCA nastiness that's found its way outside the US. Check with your friendly EU/WIPO representative to be sure. Personally I'd tell the guys at Verant to blow you and merrily post their E-Mails on your web site.
However
Why not use your formidable programming talents to help the WorldForge project instead, providing a completely unencumbered and free client and server? Users of your EverQuest server software are going to invalidate their license and Verant might get nasty and start cancelling their accounts. They apparently don't seem to think that they can compete in terms of creativity, world design or game balance or they'd just be ignoring you.
Editorial/Opinion/Rant/Flame
Of course, I have Linux and Only Linux on my system, and there never was a Linux port of EverQuest, so the guys at Verant can blow me, too. I did have UO for a while, until they stopped maintaining the Linux client after which I dropped my account, so the guys at Origin can blow me too. And while we're on the subject of blowing me, the guys at the RIAA and the MPAA can blow me, too. And all the congress people who've been allowing the corporate erosion of the Bill of Rights can also blow me. And the WIPO and the ICANN can blow me too. There needs to be a lot of blowing going on, yessir...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is one of the reasons that double blind reverse engineering is a huge deal.
IANAL:
Way back to the IBM PC days people wondered how to clone something that had restrictive licenses and not get sued (Or at least win in the event). The solution is creating a double blind.
The proccess is simple, but needs two very seperate parts. This is basically how IBM BIOS was originally reverse engineered.
Person A owns the product in question. This person is charged with writing a specification. "When XXXX is sent to the computer YYYYY should respond back based on ZZZZ" This person isn't writing any code. They are simply documenting a specification.
Person A hands the spec to Person B. Person B is a programmer. They create a program based on the Spec that Person A has created. Person B should not touch the product at all. They shouldn't interact. If they need testeding then they need Person C to test the product.
The main goal to all of this is to isolate the programmer from the product you are reverse engineering. This avoids both copyright and License issues at bay.
In this case I think you're screwed. Even if you had a legal chance there hasn't been much throught about how to isolate programmers from liability.
On the plus side, you can't take the pee out of the swimming pool. So even if you cease and disist someone could pick up the code and continue working on it.